Power Outage 2017

There was a storm Sunday night/ Monday morning and we were fine. Fine! But a tree fell on our street, and the bus didn't even pick up half the kids for school on Monday. Then Monday afternoon we were asked to pick up the kids from the bus at a location that made no sense, and then they took the tree away right before the bus came, and they cut our power. It was all super dumb. We didn't have power from 3:30 pm until lunch the next day. Oh yeah, the next day was Halloween. And James's Halloween Party. And I needed my cell phone charged so I could take an Uber to it. And we had no hot water. Disaster.

Tree removed on Monday. Next time leave it.

Power outage selfie with a flashlight.

Power Outage 2016

Last Tuesday, while Kevin was at work we had some rain and strong winds that knocked our power out. About 13,000 people lost power in Long Island and 35,000 in New Jersey. Luckily it was unseasonably warm the day before so I wasn't too worried about freezing, plus we have a fireplace now.

We were also stocked with all sorts of flashlights, candles, and radios, from our days of constantly losing power in Floral Park. The kids also have battery-powered light up toys, so we were generally excited about the power outage. Kevin brought home pizza for dinner, and just as he went out to get some more firewood, our power came back on for bedtime. So basically, more of a fun diversion for us than an actual inconvenience.

Miranda with the real flashlight, James with the kids' lanterns

Cheshire Cat photo

Updated Diary of a Refugee 2012

We're home! Our place had no power for a total of 7 days, luckily we were able to spend 5 of those at Ash's place.

Day 1: Monday, October 29th
In Long Island, Superstorm Sandy produced up to 75 mile-per-hour gusts. At our place, we lost power around 2 p.m. on Monday, and for some reason it clicked back on around 5:30 p.m. I cleaned the entire apartment after the power went out. We cleverly ordered pizza for dinner before our neighborhood lost power. We were in high spirits and James entertained us at night by singing and dancing.

Day 2: Tuesday, October 30th

Getting up with James at 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning in the dark was not fun. I started getting bored and antsy so we took a walk around the neighborhood. Kevin stood in a long line for some Dunkin Donuts coffee. That evening I started getting cold and we knew the temperature was dropping. We had cold spaghetti for dinner because our stove is electric not gas. There was less dancing Tuesday night and more huddling for warmth. I wrote more about Monday and Tuesday here.

Blackout dinner: Cold spaghetti by dinner

Day 3: Wednesday, October 31st
Wednesday afternoon we drove up to Ash's house. We heard news of the devastation in the area for the first time. We saw crazy mile-long lines for gas in New Jersey. It was Halloween so we dressed up James and let him run around. Ash's parents are also staying with her because they lost power. Ash made us an awesome hot meal for dinner.

Those are not tiger feet!

Day 4: Thursday, November 1st
Ash didn't have to go to work today, but because she had 5 noisy people staying with her she wasn't able to sleep Wednesday night, and spent some time making up for that on Thursday. I got up with James at 5 a.m. and we did our thing, and Kevin got up a little later and went hiking in Sterling Forest. When he got back, Kevin, James, and I walked around the main street, but most places didn't have power so we came back without actually going inside anywhere.

In Ash's backyard

Day 5: Friday, November 2nd
Ash's birthday! Sadly, she had to go to work so we missed her for most of the day. We tried going to the main street again, but places still didn't have power so we went to the grocery store and picked up some supplies and birthday goodies. I wrote more about Ash's birthday here.

Chilling with Ash on her birthday

Day 6: Saturday, November 3rd
Kevin tried to get gas, and despite waiting in two lines, he wasn't able to get any. Now we were worried that even if we got power back, we'd have no gas to actually get back. I didn't worry for too long though because Ash and I had plans to go to a spa and get sushi. Yay!

The Clous squeezed into the guest bathroom (Ash thought it was funny)

Day 7: Sunday, November 4th
This morning was  the end of daylight savings.  You know what's worse than the end of daylight savings with a toddler who will want to get up an hour earlier according to the clock? The end of daylight savings when you're a staying with a friend because you lost power in a storm. True story.

James coping with the end of Daylight Savings time

Kevin successfully got gas in the morning, so he relaxed by going hiking in Sterling Forest again. We walked to Main Street again and this time some of the places were finally open. We got a call from our neighbor that power came back, but we decided to stay through the day to spend more time with Ash. Kevin, Ash, James, and I went to Pennington Farm.

Ash trying to train James to be a stair gargoyle

Days 8-9: Monday, November 5th- Tuesday, November 6th
And on Monday we were back in our place with power, heat, cable, and internet! Hurray!

No one is happier than Harley. James chased him every day yelling, "Cat! Cat!"

Tuesday was a normal day with no natural disasters.

Days 10-11: Wednesday, November 7th- Thursday, November 8th

Except, then the Nor'easter hit us on Wednesday, and we lost power and heat in the middle of the night. It was cold in our apartment without heat, so Thursday afternoon James and I went to stay with my mom. Of course, the power came back as soon as we got to my mom's. 

At Nana's on Friday

Days 12-13: Friday, November 9th- Saturday, November 10th

Kevin came to get us on Friday and I was home for a few hours before I left for Girls' Weekend on Saturday morning.

In 13 days, I was able to be at home with power all day for 3 or 4 of those days (depending on whether you count last Friday or not since I could have been home but wasn't).

Nor'easter 2012

All our unnatural weather events have to have catchy names now. I'm not sure when this started exactly but the first one I remember was "Snowmageddon" or "Snowpocalypse" in DC at the beginning of 2010. Since then everything has to have it's own crazy name, and often times several names. Hurricane Sandy was renamed Superstorm Sandy when it stopped technically being a hurricane, but because it was also close to Halloween and ruined a lot of Halloween events it was also called Frankenstorm in NY. The latest and greatest is the"Nor'easter" or "Nor'Easterpocalypse." Yeah, I know, not terribly clever, but there it is.

Our first snowfall of the season coming right on the heels of Superstorm Sandy is a mess. A lot of places in New Jersey and New York haven't gotten power back and the temperatures are dropping. In Long Island by us it started snowing at 10:30 a.m. and it kept going all day. We were definitely nervous about losing power again, and every time there was a strong gust Kevin got visibly nervous. Since we didn't lose power through 4:30 p.m. we decided to take James out. His first snowfall was last October, but he was only 6 months old so he barely noticed it, much less enjoyed it. He seemed to like the snow well enough, but he wasn't crazy about it, so we didn't stay out too long. He did manage to track tons of mud and snow into the house though, so he got that part right.

James, shoveling snow

Fun in the backyard

My street on Wednesday

So everything was winter white and charming and I enjoyed a hot chocolate before bed, but it's Long Island, so you know this story does not end well. We lost power around 1 a.m., which is not a huge big deal, but when James woke up and realized it was cold, he had to be moved to our bed. We had a total of 7 inches of snow! And Kevin had to go to work the next morning so James and I were left alone without power or heat. Besides being extremely boring this was getting painful, but we were trying to be brave in hopes that the power would come back on by the afternoon. But after lunch I gave up and asked my mom to come get me and James. As we arrived at her place around 2:30 p.m., my neighbor Frank called me and told me the power was back on. Seriously. So I'm still here. I told Kevin not to even bother rescuing us, since the next storm is surely on its way, he can just come join us when he's ready.

View out my Window on Thursday morning

Superstorm Sandy 2012

In Long Island, Superstorm Sandy produced up to 75 mile-per-hour gusts. At our place, we lost power around 2 p.m. on Monday, and for some reason it clicked back on around 5:30 p.m., giving us about 30 minutes to do all the things that I regretted not doing when we lost power at 2 p.m. I made some pasta, checked email, recharged our phone again. We had bought a radio, but we didn't check it before the storm, and it was broken. So after 5:30 when we lost power, heat, and phone we had no connection to the outside world except for text messages, but we were trying to save the charge. We had no idea about the devastation that was happening in the East Coast.

We were in pretty good spirits on Monday because we had bought a lot of food in preparation and it was pretty warm inside the apartment (as well as outside). I spent my power-free time cleaning the entire place and feeling pretty good about my productivity. In the evening, James entertained us by singing (sort of) and dancing (totally). After he went to bed, we had a nice evening of drinking wine and chatting.

How to entertain a toddler in a blackout, Monday night

But things were getting kind of old on Tuesday. Getting up with James at 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning in the dark was not fun. I had to juggle a flashlight and his breakfast, and him, and there was no entertainment or even light for reading, beyond the flashlight. It wasn't light out until 7:30, and I was too bored and tired to wait until James's nap so I woke up Kevin to take over until naptime. On Tuesday we were antsy to get out so we took a walk around the neighborhood. That's when we realized it might be a long time before we got power back. And the temperature was dropping.

In front of our home

On our block

Power lines in the street

A prepared local business

In our neighborhood

More trees down in our neighborhood

A tree that hit a house

It was really cold Tuesday night, and we decided that we should probably go somewhere Wednesday. My mother lost power too, so we couldn't go there. Ash had generously invited us over even though her parents were already staying with her, so Wednesday afternoon we drove up. Driving around, some places had traffic lights and other places didn't.  We saw crazy mile-long lines for gas in New Jersey.

Gas lines in New Jersey on Route 17 near Ramsey

We listened to the radio in the car, and we heard for the first time that Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record by diameter to date, spanning 1100 miles. It's official categorization changed several times in the 5 days it took to travel from the Caribbean through New England. On October 29th it brought the most damage to the Jersey Shore, Lower Manhattan, Staten Island, Coney Island, the Rockaways. In the US, it cost at least $20 billion (but possibly over $50 billion in business interruptions) and at least 97 people died due to the storm. Today we found out that one of those people was a student at Stony Brook and we are so sad about it. I feel so terrible for her family, friends, professors, and the University community.

Wednesday was Halloween, so we let James run around Ash's house in his costume, and my mom was even able to come over and see him so that was fun. We haven't been up to much since then because a lot of stuff in Ash's town is closed due to power loss as well. We're on Day 5 and we still don't have power at home. About 900,000 people lost power in Long Island and 400,000-500,000 still don't have power. The Long Island Power Authority has no real estimate of when we might get power back, though they're guessing next weekend. That is shockingly bad, and we're obviously going to have to figure something out since Kevin has to go back to work on Tuesday, and it's supposed to be 33 degrees. I'm also super nervous because meteorologists are now predicting a winter storm in the Northeast.

Thank goodness Ash is the awesomest friend and hurricane rescue center anyone could ever have. And today is her birthday! For your birthday... you get the Clous... and your parents!...um, forever... sitting on your couch. Happy birthday, Ash!

Nana Visit- June 2012

Both of James's grandmothers try to visit him every month, but since we were gone most of May on our roadtrip, last weekend was the first time James has seen either of his grandmothers since his birthday party at the end of April. James was super excited to see Nana. We went to the park and then Nana babysat while we went out with Kevin's friends for... more BBQ. More on our BBQ addiction in another post.

Playing peekaboo with Nana at the park

Yep, I ran around like a crazy person to get the other angle

Sometimes it's handy to be short

Somebody loves the swing

Making faces at Nana

We had a lot of fun, but Nana had to leave early when we were hit with our first blackout of the summer. No one should risk a night with no air conditioning in our super-hot guest room! 

Post-Hurricane Irene 2011

In one week, James had his first earthquake and his first hurricane.  Though technically, by the time it reached us, Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm.  James was less well-behaved for the hurricane than he was for the earthquake.

Even though Hurricane Irene didn't reach Long Island until sometime around 9 a.m. on Sunday, the strong winds that had began Saturday evening.  We took the air conditioners out of the windows sealed everything tight and kept the fans circulating air until we lost power at 3 a.m. Sunday morning.  Most people wouldn't even notice losing power at that hour but I got up with the baby several times that evening.  He had a sleepover with us in our room in his play and pack, so that in case there was some damage to the house, he would be in rescuing distance.  I kept looking out the window all night and it was strangely eerie, almost how I would expect a movie to depict the time before a tornado.  That's why at 5 a.m. when I got a phone call that there was a tornado watch, I nearly jumped out of my skin.  Thankfully, there was no tornado.

A tree in our neighborhood didn't make it

Without power and thus no air conditions or fans it was hot hot hot. My guess was that it was quite comfortable outside but we didn't dare go outside or open any windows until we were certain everything was over. I think we were more cautious than we would have been if not for the baby.  Thank goodness for the battery pack on the breastmilk pump, since James refuses to breastfeed, and going cold turkey on feeding/pumping can result in mastitis and other medical complications.  We had no news of the hurricane except for some limited lookups on Kevin's phone because we didn't want to use up the power. We didn't know how long we'd be without electricity, so we tried to not even open the refrigerator. We had cranked the cooling up to high the night before because we were expecting to lose power and wanted to keep the food as cold as possible.  Luckily we had power back on by dinner time so we were able to make a hot dinner. Sadly, we lost power again RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE JERSEY SHORE. So sad. So terribly sad.

We were lucky though because many homes in Long Island still don't have power.  In retrospect, I wish we had had this emergency radio so we would have known what was going on outside.  In a more serious emergency, or a longer one, relying on one cell phone would have been unideal.  Also, I didn't know the time all day. That's a minor issue, but one that a cheap wristwatch would have cured. (When  did everyone stop wearing watches? Definitely in the last decade.) Finally, I wish I'd made some food in advance that we would have been happy to eat for dinner if we hadn't gotten the power back. We had sensible hurricane supplies like milk, bread, cold cuts, and peanut butter (and of course wine and beer) but really none of that sounded appealing for dinner.  Next time I'd make or order some food the day before that works well as cold leftovers.

Tree close-up

Long Island is a Third World Country 2011

It is a record-breaking 102 degrees Fahrenheit outside right now. Our little air-conditioner is just one year old so it's fairly modern but it can only keep our living room at about 82 degrees, but the temperature inside is rapidly climbing. We've had blackouts twice this summer, and I'm praying we don't have one today because I'm not sure how we'll handle the heat without the air conditioner. Go stay with someone? Not a great option when you have to pack a million baby things.

Also, the water in our county tested positive for E. Coli as of Monday. We found out yesterday. That's three days of drinking, bathing, and brushing our teeth with yummy E. Coli water. Not to mention that the baby drinks powder formula which is now terrifying. Since we found out we've been using bottled water for all our drinking needs and boiled water for cleaning stuff.  Right now I'm boiling water for the baby's bath, but due to a fear of burning the baby, the baby will almost definitely be getting a pretty cool bath today. I myself would like a cool shower, but since I'm not going to boil enough water for myself, I wonder what's better- not showering or bathing in E. Coli water.

Of course, the 102 degrees and no potable water are just recent developments on Long Island. There was already the uncivilized behavior and terrifying driving. And if I did live in a third world country, the taxes would much lower and there would be readily available tropical drinks. On the bright side, I don't have to worry about rebel armies on Long Island. But then, there are all those Yankees fans.

Cartagena, where I wish I were, instead of Long Island